What can you say about Gary Numan that hasn’t been said already over a 22 year career. Viciously attacked by the press from the very day his debut single Are Friends’ Electric? stormed to number one in 1979 and virtually blanket banned by Radio One throughout the eighties. The fact that Numan is even here rather than wallowing in self pity is remarkable. However, it is true to say that Numan’s confidence did hit a crisis of epic proportions resulting in even his own most loyal of loyal fans deserting him after some pretty duff albums in the early nineties.
Remarkably though, Numan’s career has taken another about-turn mainly thanks to the horde of artists that have literally queued up to acclaim him as being hugely influential towards the uprising of techno & hip-hop in particular. We’ve seen Trent Reznor, Marilyn Manson, Smashing Pumpkins, Beck, Moby & Liam Howlett hail Numan as an electronic innovator whilst a massive catalogue of names have covered his songs either live or on record.
This is reflected in his acclaimed new album 'Pure', released in October this year.
You rose from the ashes without the help of anybody in 1979, do you think this is why you were so disliked by the music-press?Is this all down to the fact that they never made you a star because you made yourself a star? Not too sure about the ashes bit, it implies that I was in something that failed or died before becoming successful. I actually came out of nowhere as far as the press was concerned although, to be fair, I did have some help from some quarters, although not much from the press. My parents were massively helpful and Beggars Banquet and WEA had the courage to put out what was, at the time, a fairly strange record. Why the press didn't take to me is difficult for me to answer. I was one of the first to have a big hit in the wake of punk, which had been very anti-hero, anti-star and I was clearly going in the opposite direction. I admitted to wanting fame, to wanting a better lifestyle and many other things. I think that annoyed them for starters. The music was considered to be a bit odd, nothing that would last very long. I was thought of as odd, with no real attachment to the 'youth' of the day. They didn't like that either. My highly focused sense of purpose and, as some would have it, ruthless drive also upset a few people that seemed to think we should all be doing it for the good of the common man. All the common man had ever done for me was stab me in the head in a London back street so I had no great desire to give away what I earned. Most of all I think, I sold too many records. The album that first went to Number One had been slagged by most journalists so it must have upset them to see it sell so massively. Although I was hardly popular with the UK press I did, from time to time, have a few people that had something positive to say so it wasn't all bad. I also could have handled it much better so much of the problem was my inexperience in dealing with the press. I have no lasting bad feelings about it.
“The nonsense in the press about my flying did bother me a lot. I've never been at the controls of an aeroplane that's had an accident.”
The music-press were always incredibly nasty about your flying exploits too, It’s true to say that you are not respected for flying around the world when u could have stayed at home counting your money, did this criticism hurt more than anything? Flying around the World was exciting, mainly terrifying actually but I'm glad I did it. I'm far more proud of the display flying to be honest. For the last 17 years I have been a low level aerobatic display pilot flying World War 2 combat aeroplanes. For many years I led a formation aerobatic team around Europe and I was also tasked by the Civil Aviation Authority to evaluate, or examine, other pilots that wanted to become display pilots. I was also an instructor for a while at the only dedicated training school for display pilots in Europe, teaching mainly formation aerobatics. The nonsense in the press about my flying did bother me a lot. I've never been at the controls of an aeroplane that's had an accident, although I was in a plane that crashed many years ago. That was being flown by an airline pilot at the time and the aeroplane broke down, simple as that. It was no-ones fault, and certainly not mine as I was only a passenger. That accident, when it happened, was spread all over the papers, TV and radio. No-one was remotely interested in what had actually happened, the best headline for them was 'Numan Crashes' and so that's what they went with. That or something like it. It's a little bit annoying that I've got to such a high level with the display flying but the media have shown little interest in that. Becoming a display pilot evaluator, not that I do it these days, is very difficult and demanding.
After your first few years in the business you were a multi-millionaire, yet by the mid-eighties you were struggling. What would you change going back, would you never had set up your own record label Numa, which seemed to be the source of all your financial problems? I was struggling by the late eighties, virtually bankrupt. Numa sucked away some money but most of it was spent on massive light shows long after I'd stopped selling enough records to justify them. Touring crippled me but I couldn't figure out another way of promoting the albums, and of keeping my remaining fans satisfied, without touring. So I just ploughed away hoping for the best for too many years with things just going from bad to worse. The press didn't help. My own musical direction didn't help for much of the time. Radio One not play listing any of my records since 1983, even when they charted, was the biggest blow. That is such a handicap that it was like trying to run a marathon with your legs tied together and wearing a woolly suit in a heat-wave. Still is really as far as the UK is concerned. I've learned to live with it, it's changed my perception as to what I should concentrate on, what I should write and what I should care about. Looking back I would change so many things given a chance. Some of the albums but not all, some of the images but not all, many of the things I said, not because they were wrong necessarily, although some were, but because they were often ill-timed.
You had a lot of problems dealing with fame, lots of highs and lows, can you pinpoint any particularly memorable occasions, good or bad, that really stick out for you? Being chased through an airport by hundreds of fans was quite cool. I always wondered what that would feel like. Receiving death threats was not so cool. I had more problems dealing with people than fame actually. People are very strange it seems to me. People will talk about you when you are standing right beside them. People often assume that you will be arrogant and so approach you as if you've already done something bad to them. They rarely say please or thank-you when asking for autographs. As a famous person you become 'product', even to many of those people that claim to be fans. It takes a lot of getting used to. It took me too long to get used to in many ways. Still, we are paid a lot of money for what we do, sometimes, and dealing with people is part of what we are paid for. I'm much more relaxed about it these days in any case. I've pretty much heard everything by now, been in the most bizarre situations, so it all just gets filed away under 'people'. Some of them are excellent of course and they help to balance things.
Your light shows were legendary in the early days, it must have been a great feeling knowing what you were going to unveil on your audience in those early days? I was still doing massive light shows up until the early 90's, not just the early days. In fact, come to think of it, the light show on the UK tour in '97 was one of the biggest in terms of lights and structure, with the exception of the Wembley shows in '81. Putting on big light shows, when you can, is very exciting and yes it does give you an amazing feeling watching the fans reactions when the big effects kick in.
Are these old light panels in storage? Would it be too expensive to use them again, I notice your stage shows are not quite as visually impressive these days. The light panels are long gone and how sad and painfully nostalgic would it be to dig them out again anyway? For the last two years, due to other work commitments, mainly writing the new album and internet projects, I've only been able to play scattered 'one-off' shows in the UK. These shows were put on to keep the fans happy (hopefully). I knew I was going to be busy with the new album and so had no time to design, rehearse and tour a big stage show for many weeks, if not months. The fans were told this before the 'one-offs' even started so nobody should have been under any misunderstanding. The new album will be finished later this year and then, possibly, the big light shows will come back. However, that's far from certain. Putting on those big shows can cost hundreds of thousands of pounds and that is impossible to recover unless you can sell out big venues for many weeks. I haven't had a decent hit record in the UK for quite a few years now so the chances of me pulling that many people, in this country at least, is remote. How many other artists can you name, that don't have hit records, that put on massive light shows? Very few, if any. I, more than most other people, have put on some of the biggest shows ever seen on stage, and I did it for years longer than I could afford. If I possibly can, and that will be determined only by how many people come to see me, I will do it again.
Photo: Steve Gullick
"I'll rip the skin off God's face" ('RIP' - Pure) Gary's not in the best of moods these days
“Radio One not play listing any of my records since 1983, even when they charted, was the biggest blow. That is such a handicap that it was like trying to run a marathon with your legs tied together”
Your sexual exploits were also legendary, thanks to your autobiography, although you appear to be embarrassed by them now, in all honestly if you had your time again would you swear not to touch the groupies? My sexual exploits are most definitely NOT legendary and in my autobiography I very much played down what little there was. I'm not embarrassed about anything to be honest but, now that I'm married, I think it's something that should be left in the past. The Daily Mirror talked about 500 women but that was complete bollocks. I never gave the Mirror any figure, they just made one up I haven't a clue how many women I slept with over the years. If I had my time again I would do exactly the same, until I met Gemma. She changed everything.
In all seriousness your most recent album Exile was much better on the songwriting front than we have heard from you for a very long time, what made you regain your enthusiasm for writing music? I think the only really dodgy album that I put out was Machine And Soul in '92 and that was more because it had very little of me on it rather than being bad musically. I dried up with that album and so a friend helped me finish it. It was more his than mine in many ways. Making that album was such a shitty period. I lost all sense of direction, had no idea what to write about, how I wanted to sound, the feel of the record, nothing. I was completely empty. Financially broke, terrible record sales with no hope in sight. It was a horrible period to try and write an album. It was after that album that I changed everything about my relationship with the music business. I stopped trying to write songs that I thought of as radio friendly. Stopped worrying about success, money, everything pretty much. I made the music a hobby again and, as soon as I did that, the pressure lifted and I suddenly started to enjoy it again. As soon as I started to enjoy it the music got darker and more interesting. My natural songwriting began to flow rather than all the 'career' stuff that I had got bogged down in for too many years previously. It's not so much that the songwriting got better with Exile in my opinion, it's more that the style, the subject matter and the overall sound became more natural to me. It was where I should always have been. It was more a case of stumbling back across a road I should never have left. Although, having said that, I learned a lot musically speaking in the years I had wondered away and tried a variety of other musical styles. There are many people in my fan base that actually prefer other albums, other styles of 'Numan' altogether. I think Exile, and Sacrifice before it in '94, are my two best though.
“In ‘92 I lost all sense of direction, had no idea what to write about, how I wanted to sound, the feel of the record, nothing. I was completely empty. Financially broke, terrible record sales with no hope in sight.”
Both Sacrifice and Exile were both very harsh, almost industrial-rock albums, can we expect something different from your next album because the Industrial scene is pretty dead now, even NIN have clearly steered away from it? I disagree with that actually. Sacrifice and Exile are definitely not harsh to my ears. Dark yes, powerful yes but both flow and are, if anything, very filmic. Both have very flowing, almost arabian, melody lines, especially Exile, and both are lacking in any abrasive or high attack sounds. The next one will be harsh and aggressive. I doubt many fans of pure industrial music would agree that those two albums of mine sit easily alongside some of the more extreme industrial albums. It leans that way, possibly, but it's no more than a lean. The industrial scene is also far from dead, and thank Christ for that. I love a lot of industrial music and it's only gone quiet in this country, and so now we have Steps and Bewitched to enjoy don't we? Around the rest of the world a lot of bands are taking some very powerful ideas, some outrageous sounds amd moving forward in a way that the UK can't hope to stay with in the current boyband climate. We, in our smug belief that we are the best regardless of the facts staring us in the face, have allowed 'pop' to dominate to such a degree that little else can get a hearing, or signed. Our best bands, our most powerful and interesting music is either dying through lack of record label/radio interest, or it's going overseas where things are far more interesting and creative. I'm not too sure that Trent Reznor would consider that Nine Inch Nails were ever an industrial band in any case. You can clearly see the roots of previous NIN albums in The Fragile, it's just moved on a bit and it is, in my opinion, quite brilliant. I don't see The Fragile as being steered away from anything NIN have done previously, it's just an excellent progression. Live, the new NIN songs sit perfectly beside the earlier stuff. I hate virtually all current pop music. I see almost nothing worthwhile there at all. No power, no real personalities, no interest. I look elsewhere for the things that I need from music, and for the things I want to do with mine. I just want to get darker and heavier. No other direction has anything to offer. I don't really care actually whether it's called Industrial, Industrial Rock or Santas Sonnets for that matter. I just want to get, musically speaking, more aggressive, menacing and lyrically challenging. Everything else is just lightweight shit.
Why have you never worked with a producer on your albums, do you not want anybody else to interfere with your work. Is there an insecurity there that you would admit to? I've worked with a few producers. Mike Smith and Ian Herron on Berserker, The Fury and a bit on Strange Charm, Bill Nelson on Warriors (despite what the credits might say), Kipper on Machine And Soul and possibly one or two people on the new one. In the main though I prefer to work alone. I'm riddled with insecurities about everything I do but it has nothing to do with that. I can't stand having to 'discuss' ideas. It either feels right or it doesn't and I like to go with an idea or throw it away quickly. I don't like the compromises you have to reach at times for the sake of studio 'good feeling' and personal morale. Sometimes I miss the confidence that a pat on the back from a workmate can give but, overall, I'm happiest on my own.
Now that you are married does the wife complain that you spend too much time locked up in your studio, do you ever let her in or are you frightened she might break something?Gemma has more qualifications than almost anyone else I know, she is very bright and unlikely to break anything. She also never complains about anything. She is the main reason for me finding my songwriting feet again and her input was vitally important to me saving my career. Gemma is a fan so she has no problem with me spending long hours working. I miss her even when she goes to the shops so she is always welcome in the studio. She is that voice of encouragement that somebody that works alone so desperately needs.
How long do you realistically imagine you can continue writing popular music for? Is retiring something you have ever considered? (not that we want you to!). I don't write popular music if my chart positions are anything to go by. I intend to end my creative days writing novels from a small thatched cottage in Cornwall. When that will be though I have no idea. At the moment I'm, arguably, writing the best stuff I've ever done, I still look okay, my touring schedule and audience is increasing rather than decreasing so things look better now than they have for a long time. I now have music being used on films and film promos, computer games and TV ads. I'm being covered by more different bands than almost anyone else on the planet, or so it seems, and I have some excellent collaboration projects planned with some truly inspiring people. All in all, things could hardly be going better so retiring seems a long way off at the moment.
Now of course you rightly receive much more acclaim than criticism, did you ever think for a moment when you were writing Replicas or The Pleasure Principle that eventually they might become classics of their time and be so heavily influential to certain genres? No, all you care about when you're making an album is how you can fix the things that you think are wrong with it. I do anyway. I've never been aware for an instant during the making of any album that I was creating something that would go on to be considered a classic, or that would become massively influential to a wide range of musicians, many of which are highly creative and influential in their own right. I'm very proud of that now of course.
You have been very involved in the setting up of your own internet site, is this paying noticeable dividends for you at the moment. I still find the UK’s perception of the Internet to be behind America yet the UK market is your biggest one?I have a web site called NuWorld. The main function of NuWorld has been to supply fans with information. It has been brilliantly successful in putting me in touch with fans outside the UK that previously had found it hard to find out if I was even alive let alone making albums. The internet has had a huge impact on my career and most of it has been good. The UK is not my biggest market actually, the United States is. Around 17 percent of the visitors to the site are UK based, with over 65 percent coming from the States. I sell more albums in the States and have a bigger live following. I'm not particularly aware of how people in the UK perceive the internet but I don't see a great deal of difference between UK and USA visitors to be honest. They both seem to havegood grasp of the technology and how my presence on it can be of benefit to a fan.
“I intend to end my creative days writing novels from a small thatched cottage in Cornwall.”
I also get the impression that whilst you can access more people on the net and therefore sell more material this may have been countered by the MP3 phenomenon. Has the internet opened a can of worms that could devour the music industry rather than help it? I don't see MP3 as a great threat, more an opportunity. I hope the internet devours certain music retailers as they have, in my opinion, bled the music fan dry for too long. The biggest share of any sold album, by far, goes to the shop that sells it and they have a no risk, sale or return agreement with pretty much all the record labels. Many have deals that mean they buy one and yet get two, three or more records actually delivered. I understand the argument about overheads but I find it very unconvincing. Numa Records was killed off the first time we tried to run it, as a conventional record label, by the incredibly unrealistic deals the record stores were demanding. If you don't agree they just don't stock your record and you are stuffed. The internet is changing that, MP3 will be major part of that change growing even stronger. The answer to MP3 and the piracy threat is to make music available for less money. Without the record stores and their large profit margin, and perhaps with less album packaging, prices can tumble. NuWorld, via the NuStreet on-line stores, is already a major reseller of Numan albums, no matter what label they appear on, and I hope to increase that side of our set up significantly in the future.
I have been reading through some of the Gary Numan web sites and there seems to be some debate as to the fact that you have written just 10 songs in 5 years. Why have we waited so long for some new material, In 1979 you put out three albums in one year? Figures can be made to look differently depending on how you see things. In '79 I put out two albums of of one of those had been written in '78. The time it takes to make high tech, vaguely experimental albums in the year 2000 is very different to '79. The amount of technology involved in modern music, in writing and recording, is quite phenomenal. I do not have an engineer, a programmer, a producer, lots of musicians, a co-writer, an album sleeve designer, a studio wiring expert, a maintenance engineer, any of the people that many others rely on. I do it all myself. I have to learn, and keep up, a wide range of ever changing skills. I's very difficult and it does mean that it takes me a little longer to complete things than other artists that are surrounded by a team of experts 24 hours a day. I also run the NuWorld web site single handed, learning how to code etc painstakingly over the last few years. I'm also married and have a reasonably busy social life. I am often involved in other musical projects which eat into my own album schedule. I tour regularly, although I've tried to cut back on that until the new album is ready. I do all of the artwork and design for the entire Numan operation, from business cards to t-shirts, to posters, album sleeves and mouse mats. I'm really quite busy most of the time. Since 1995 I've written 28 songs, but most of those are still to be released. If you add to that all the other non musical things I've put out, plus a number of new versions of older songs that were completely reworked and reworkings of older songs for live work, I think most people would agree that the output has been quite remarkable. These web sites are full of opinions from people who probably mean well but don't really understand what's involved in running a career.
Some of the websites are pretty scathing, and you have criticised them in the past and have also been accused of trying to censor them somewhat. Do you not feel people have a right to express an opinion, however daft it may seem to you? Some of the web sites cannot really be considered as fan sites at all. Luckily most can and I'm very grateful for the constant support and encouragement they provide. I feel people have a right to say whatever they wish and I defy anyone to find a single example of me trying to stop anyone from saying anything, good or bad, about new material, I pretty much link to every single site, regardless of its content, although that may not last forever. The cries of 'control' and 'censorship' from some parts of the internet are quite unbelievable. I once tried to explain that I was unable, due to being contracted to certain record labels, to link to sites that had bootleg records for sale. For me to link to a bootleg site would have been very bad form, and quite possibly illegal, in the eyes of the labels that I had contracts with. I would have been condoning, if not actively encouraging, the sale of illegal records, something the labels themselves were trying desperately to stop. I was called paranoid and a 'control freak' for that one. I didn't report anybody, didn't try to stop anybody, I simply said that I wouldn't be able to link to them. The fact that I would stay linked to other sites that did still link to the bootleg sites seemed to go unnoticed amidst the deafening cries of 'control'. If I respond to criticism I am accused of being unfair. I am accused of trying to stop peoples rights to express an opinion and yet, all I ever say is that I disagree with that opinion. People are allowed to pour ridicule upon me, they slag the records, the shows, my clothes, my haircut, my band, my voice, the lights, the choice of songs played. Almost anything you can name is ripped apart. That is all fine apparently. If I dare raise my eyes above the parapet and say, 'Actually, that's not quite right', I become the demon bent on taking away peoples free speech. The fact is, some people talk complete bollocks, only I'm not allowed to say so. In recent months we've come to learn that much of the crap on the 'few' web sites that contain this stuff are not from fans anyway. It seems that people get onto the discussion groups and forums, having never been to a Numan show or bought an album, and simply start a wave of aggressive comment. This then breaks a perfectly reasonable discussion amongst fans down into a spiteful slanging match. We call these people 'Intruders'. We've even identified one that visits a number of other artists sites belonging to friends of mine and does much the same thing. Other people have the right to say what they want on their own sites. They can link to whoever they want to,and so can I. If I choose not to link NuWorld to sites that I feel do nothing more than give a voice to troublemakers who aren't even genuine fans I feel I should be allowed that right. It's no more than what the others sites claim. After all, they're the first people to cry out for the right to free speech and a lack of censorship. I don't ask for any more rights than the next person.
Photo: Joseph Cultice
Do you enjoy making music or do you simply regard it as a good job that pays well, I always had the impression that you were a businessman first and musician second? I'm a poor example of a businessman aren't I? Millionaire by 21, skint by 31. No, I'm a musician above all else, and not a particularly gifted musician unfortunately. I find making music to be extremely stressful and mentally painful. I enjoy the end result and I love touring. I do not regard it as a good job that pays well. For most of the time, unless you're at the top of the ladder, it doeasn't actually pay that well. In a ten year period I actually lost in excess of £500,000 even though I was working every hour God sent. No holidays, no toys, nothing, just work. I am to business what Hitler was to world peace. But I do work hard, and slowly but surely that work is now paying off.
You seem to have more compilation albums out than any other artist is there no way of stopping these leeches from milking your career? I don't see it that way. No fan is forced to buy anything and only a tiny few are so serious a collector of my music that they feel obliged to buy everything that's put out. I do earn from back catalogue sales so I don't feel that my career is being milked at all. I don't always think the choice of songs is well thought out on some of these re-releases but, as I say, no-one has to buy them and, judging by the sales figures, the fans are very smart when it comes to choosing which re-releases are worthwhile and which are not. Finally, no, I couldn't stop them even if I wanted to.
Fear Factory's version of Cars wasn't very interesting and nowhere near as good as yours, are you honoured by all these cover versions that have come out recently because very few ever seem to really capture the atmosphere of the original release. And still no cover version of Cars was ever better than the original, do you agree and if so why do you think that is? I really liked the Fear Factory version. It was, I believe, voted third best song of the year in Kerrang Magazine and best song of the year in the European Rock Sound Mag so people obviously liked it. I am very honoured by all the cover versions, very. I'm hugely proud of how things have turned out on that score. To people deeply attached to the originals cover versions are very unlikely to ever be thought of as better. The fact is though that the cover versions are introducing me to not only a new audience but to a very much wider audience than before. I'm being covered by every kind of act from thrash metal to dance. That can only encourage people that have not previously been fans to check me out. That has to be a very, very good thing.
Where do you stand on the analogue versus digital debate, having extensively used both yourself? The majority of successfull electronic artists believe that analogue machines are irreplaceable, however limited, and have a certain sound that has never been replaced by digital sounding machines? Will we hear analogue on your next album? I don't stand anywhere on it. I really couldn't give a flying shit one way or the other. I don't mean to be offensive but anyone caught up in whether things are digital or analogue has already lost the plot as far as I'm concerned. The last thing I am interested in when using gear is whether it's digital or analogue. Does it sound good? That's the only question anyone needs to ask. The rest are all climbing up their own arty backsides.
Can I ask if there is any more hidden Gary Numan material from late ‘79 or ‘80 that you will be unleashing on us, there are a lot of rumours around that you will be releasing something at some point? I don't have anything hidden. I've been amazed to discover that I did have some things that were lost though, long forgotten by me, but that's all been released now as far as I know. Rumours are usually started by people that know nothing but like to pretend they know something nobody else does. It makes them feel important I guess. I wouldn't take much notice of rumours. I have nothing that I know of that is due to come out from the late '79, early '80's, or any other period for that matter. It may be there but I don't know about it if it is. The thing is I am so uninterested in digging up old songs I can't begin to explain. I'm too busy writing new stuff.
“I'm a musician above all else, and not a particularly gifted musician unfortunately. I find making music to be extremely stressful and mentally painful.”
Gary Numan interview Barcode 2000 (c)